My Top 5 WWF Events of All-Time

Let me start this post by saying that for the majority of my childhood I watched the WWF. My first memory of a WWF event was Hulk Hogan, bloodied face and all, winning the WWF Heavyweight Title from Sgt. Slaughter at WrestleMania VII. He proudly waved the American flag after triumphing over the traitor above all traitors. I was just 4 years old then and from that moment on I was hooked on professional wrestling and I immersed myself it as much as I could. I watched wrestling from April of 1991 until 2002. I never forgot about wrestling even though I didn’t watch. When the WWF started releasing DVDs of past events, I soon realized that my childhood was coming back to me. I jumped at the opportunity to buy the events that defined my early years, and even the events that predated my life. Before I knew it I owned the first 10 WrestleMania events, the first 5 Royal Rumbles, the first 5 SummerSlams and the first 10 Survivor Series events. From watching the DVDs I bought, I got to thinking about my top 5 favorite events of all time. I finally decided to put it into a list. So here it is:

5. WrestleMania X

Date: March 20, 1994

Venue: Madison Square Garden New York, NY

I didn’t know it at the time but this was a very crucial WrestleMania for the WWF. It was the first WrestleMania since Hulk Hogan had left the company and the world of professional wrestling was watching for what kind of event the WWF would put on. It marked the first time that the Hart brothers, Bret and Owen, would face off in the squared circle. Everyone, including me, expected Bret to trounce Owen because he was due to get a WWF Title shot later in the night. But, “The King of Harts” shocked the world and blocked a victory roll and took the win, forever moving out of Bret’s shadow. WrestleMania X featured the last WrestleMania match by the late, great “Macho Man” Randy Savage and appearances by Mr. Perfect and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. This event was truly the changing of the guard. The old generation was moving out and a new generation of stars was taking over. Razor Ramon defeated Shawn Michaels in a ladder match for the ages to retain the WWF Intercontinental Title. The match is one of my favorites ever, not just because HBK, my least favorite wrestler ever, lost, but because it was the first ladder match in WrestleMania history. The image of Razor Ramon, perched atop the ladder with both IC belts (HBK carried a fake one around) is forever burned into my mind. Now of course WrestleMania X had some matches that I would like to forget but are just as much a part of my memories as the rest, like the Doink and Dink vs. Bam Bam Bigelow and Luna Vachon mixed tag team match or the WWF Women’s Championship Match between Alundra Blayze and Leilani Kai. But the reason I love WrestleMania X so much is because my favorite wrestler, Bret Hart, recovered from the loss to his brother and won the WWF Heavyweight Title from Yokozuna to become a two-time champion. I remember going crazy as he pinned the gigantic Yokozuna and fellow wrestlers pick him up on their shoulders to help him celebrate his monumental victory.

4. Royal Rumble 1992

Date: January 19, 1992

Venue: Knickerbocker Arena Albany, New York

The main reason I love this event is because, for the first time, the Royal Rumble meant something. The winner of the Royal Rumble would become the new WWF Heavyweight Champion. 30 men, 1 winner, 1 champion. That’s all I can remember in the build up to the event. As a young fan, obviously I was rooting for Hulk Hogan to win and regain the title. What was great about the idea was that a guy like the Repo Man (Demolition’s Smash) could have won the title. You didn’t expect it to happen, but all of a sudden it was possible. In the booth, Bobby “the Brain” Heenan was the world’s biggest Ric Flair fan, referencing to the fact that he knew that his man would win the WWF Championship that night. He was nervous all night and his broadcast partner, Gorilla Monsoon, was quick to point it out to him. There were two other titles on the line that night, with the Mountie losing his Intercontinental Title to Roddy Piper and the Legion of Doom retaining the Tag Team Titles despite a count-out loss to the Natural Disasters. But my real memories come from the Royal Rumble match. I will never forget the reaction of Bobby Heenan when Ric Flair came out of the curtain as the third entrant in the match. Heenan was so angry that his screams of, “No! No! This is not fair to Flair!” are some of the funniest things I have ever heard. The whole rest of the match Heenan was completely oblivious to everything but what Ric Flair was doing. As the match was winding down to the end, some of the company’s biggest stars were left. Names like Flair, Hogan, Savage, Piper and Justice were all in it until the end. Just as you thought Hogan would eliminate Sid Justice and Flair, Justice came up from behind and knocked out the Hulkster, thus crushing my dreams as a child. Improbably, Flair then came up behind Justice and eliminated him and won the WWF Championship for the first time. Heenan went crazy and Hulkamania went crazy, vilifying Justice as public enemy number one. But we’ll come to that feud later on.

3. SummerSlam 1990

Date: August 27, 1990

Venue: The Spectrum Philadelphia, PA

Many experts say that this event is bad and unwatchable, but I love it. For me, none of the matches are too long and drawn out. The longest match was just over 14 minutes. Short and sweet isn’t always a bad thing. It kept me entertained and not looking for something else to do. This event had everything for me. Shawn Michaels lost again, this time as part of the Rockers to Power and Glory, and a Bret Hart victory. Bret, along with Jim Neidhart, won the WWF Tag Team Championships from Demolition in a best 2 out of 3 falls match. This is one of my favorite matches ever because you knew that Demolition, the heel group, was going to try and break the rules and you knew they were going to get caught, you just didn’t know how. They were a trio now, as Ax and Smash were joined by Crush, and they made it almost impossible to be beaten. But the rule in the contract was only two members of Demolition were allowed to be at ringside, so you knew that at some point all three would be involved in the match. Sure enough, after the teams had split the first two falls, Ax made his way to the ring and hid underneath it. As Ax and Smash started to switch positions in the match, the Legion of Doom came to ringside and pulled Ax from under the ring, distracting the entire Demolition team long enough so the Hart Foundation could get the win. I love the event because Hulk Hogan was not in the last match of the night. He was still in a main event because the WWF had “double main event.” The Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude had a great cage match for the WWF Title in the last match of the night after Hogan and Earthquake stunk up the joint. The “Texas Tornado” Kerry von Erich won the WWF Intercontinental Title from Mr. Perfect in a brief, but memorable match. It was great because Bobby Heenan complained after the match that Perfect had kicked out when replays clearly showed he wasn’t moving when the 3 count came down. For an event I didn’t see live, it remains one of my favorite because of the entertainment value of the quality matches.

2. WrestleMania VIII

Date: April 5, 1992

Venue: Hoosier Dome Indianapolis, IN

This is, by far, my favorite WrestleMania event of all time. To me, it had everything: crazy endings, shock value, and great matches. The best match on the card, in my opinion, was the WWF Championship match between Ric Flair and “Macho Man” Randy Savage. The match lasted 18 minutes but it doesn’t seem like it at all. The match had twists and turns and a great comeback. Mr. Perfect, Flair’s executive consultant, did everything in his power to ensure the title would stay with Flair, but in the end, Savage overcame a knee “injury” to win the WWF Championship for a 2^nd time. Flair, Perfect and Bobby Heenan screamed foul when it was shown that Savage held the tights on the winning pinfall. Bret Hart regained his Intercontinental Title from Roddy Piper in a match that ended with Piper being pinned for the first time in 17 years. Piper, who at one point looked to use the bell as a weapon, was in control for much of the match but Hart, bloodied up, used a funky maneuver to get the pin and the win. But the thing that puts this event on my list was the main event between Hulk Hogan and Sid Justice. Now, it’s not because of the match itself that I put it on the list. The match was pretty much god awful, as is every Hulk Hogan match. It was what happened after. Hogan did his usual comeback against Justice: Kick out of his opponent’s finisher, “Hulk up,” punch, punch, punch, Irish whip, big boot, atomic leg drop. The only difference was when he went for the pin, Harvey Wippleman, Justice’s manager, jumped on the apron, causing a DQ win for Hogan. Then Papa Shango (AKA Kama, Godfather) ran down to the ring and proceeded to double team Hogan with Justice. Just when it seemed that Hogan was helpless the improbable happened. As Justice went to get a chair, the Ultimate Warrior’s theme started playing. He hadn’t been seen since SummerSlam 1991, when he got fired. He charged to the ring in his usual fashion and broke up the fracas in the ring. I was shocked in every way. Hogan and the Warrior proceeded to celebrate in the ring, doing pose downs to entertain the crowd.

1. SummerSlam 1992

Date: August 29, 1992

Venue: Wembley Stadium London, England

That brings me to my favorite event ever. I can watch this event so many times and it never gets old or boring. It was the first SummerSlam outside of the United States and the first WWF pay per view event outside of North America. The crowd of over 80,000 people was into every single match from start to finish. What makes this event so great to me is that it has 2 matches on it where you aren’t really sure as to what the outcome is going to be. In most professional wrestling matches the viewer has a pretty good idea as to who is going to win. In the two singles title matches I had no idea who was going to win because they both featured face vs. face. In the WWF Championship match, the Ultimate Warrior faced the champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage. In the build-up to the bout, perennial bad guy, Mr. Perfect, said he would be in the corner of one of the two men. No one knew who, but it added an extra element to the match. The match started and there was no sign of Mr. Perfect, until he came to ringside with Ric Flair. They took turns going after both men, and once the combatants realized it, they turned their attention to getting the unwelcome parties away from ringside. Savage attempted a flying axe handle off the top rope to the outside but was struck in the knee with a chair. He was counted out and retained the title, but the match was one that you truly had no idea what was going to happen until it actually happened. The 2^nd match was the main event of the night. It pitted Britain’s own “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith challenging Bret ‘the Hitman” Hart for the Intercontinental Title. Both were such huge fan favorites, but you weren’t sure if the Bulldog had what it took to beat Bret Hart. The other underlying aspect was these two men are brothers-in-law so it added more spice to the contest. I know I figured that Hart would win because he hadn’t been champion all that long. Davey Boy was able to escape the Sharpshooter, Hart’s finishing hold, and Bret was able to kick out of the Running Powerslam, Davey Boy’s finishing move. It was a great technical match, one that Bret Hart calls his favorite match ever. It ended when Bret hit a sunset flip and the Bulldog turned it into a pin, thus shocking the world and becoming the Intercontinental Champion. This match is one of my favorites because the crowd acted similar to a soccer crowd and it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Haven't I Seen This Before?

There’s an old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The WWF has clearly adhered to this way of thinking in the WrestleMania era (1985-present). As I have collected past WWF DVDs over the past year or so and watched the recent episodes of RAW I have noticed so many similarities between the biggest Superstar from back then, Hulk Hogan, and the biggest Superstar of today, John Cena. Some of the similarities are obvious to even the most casual fan, but others are somewhat tougher to notice.

First and foremost, both Hogan and Cena are the faces of the company. That isn’t debatable at all. From the early 1980’s to the early 1990’s Hulk Hogan was the most marketable Superstar the WWF had. In a span of 7 and a half years, Hogan held the WWF Heavyweight Title 4 times over a span of 2,087 days. It seemed as though whenever Hogan was about to fade out of view and give way to someone else he would win the title again and be back in the spotlight. A lot of this had to do with the fact that Hogan was notorious for being selfish, egotistical prick in the locker room and would make sure he got the title and the spotlight whenever he wanted it. John Cena has been a main eventer in the WWF since 2004. In that time he has been WWF Heavyweight Champion 8 times (including his current reign) and WWF World Heavyweight Champion twice. Cena is different from Hogan in the fact that, by all accounts, he is all about the furthering of the WWF brand and not about his own popularity or legacy. He is purely a company guy and if him being the champion is for the good of the company he’ll be the champ and if the company wants him to drop the title to someone the WWF is looking to give a push (The Miz) he’s glad to do it.

Another similarity I noticed between Hogan and Cena is their overwhelming appeal to the younger fans of the WWF. Now, I will admit that when I was a kid I was a fan of Hulk Hogan and his persona. Hogan was known for his character, not his wrestling prowess. He had three “demandments” for all his Hulkamaniacs to follow. If you were a kid in the early 1990’s like I was you knew that they were: 1. Train 2. Say your prayers and 3. Eat your vitamins. Kids of the time ate all this junk that Hogan spewed up like it was Kool-Aid. Now I was a fan of Hogan but he was gone from the WWF by 1993 and I was only 6 so I was able to forget about Hogan altogether and move on to someone better. John Cena burst onto the scene as a brash, obnoxious white rapper who would antagonize the top stars of the day, like Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar. Soon the WWF saw a potential star and they quickly turned him to a face, keeping the “hip-hop” style but losing the freestyle raps and obnoxiousness. Soon he became an inspiration for young fans with his motto “Hustle, Loyalty, Respect.” His fans became known as CeNation and they became the most vocal fans in the crowds. Like Hogan, Cena is not known for his in-ring prowess, but for his work on the microphone. Nevertheless, both Cena and Hogan became gigantic Superstars for the WWF because of their marketability to the younger fans.

Because of the vast popularity of both men, Hogan and Cena both have tried, and failed, to crossover into the field of movie making. Hogan made duds like 1989’s No Holds Barred, 1991’s Suburban Commando (with an appearance by a young Undertaker), and 1996’s Santa With Muscles. Hogan would have the WWF do loads upon loads of promotion for his movies while he was with the company. I feel like this was Hogan’s way of trying to get out of the company. He would use the resources of the WWF to get his popularity in movies to the point that he could leave the wrestling business in the dust. But with every box office failure, came more and more of Hogan on WWF television, including a title reign in between movies in 1991. Cena has also made his fair share of box office flops. 2006’s The Marine did nothing at the box office, despite an incredible amount of promotion by the WWF. Then he went on to put out movies like 2009’s 12 Rounds and 2010’s Legendary which both did very little at the box office. Both men quickly found out that The Rock is a rare case of a wrestler that could crossover and be a big time movie star and leave wrestling in his past.

The true measure of a wrestler’s star power is their performance at the grand daddy of them all, WrestleMania. In the first nine WrestleMania events, Hulk Hogan was involved in the main event of 8 of them and was at ringside during the main event of WrestleMania IV between Ted DIBiase and “Macho Man” Randy Savage. His WrestleMania record during that time was 7 wins, 2 losses, and one double disqualification (Hogan was involved in 2 matches at WrestleMania IX, winning one and losing the other by disqualification). He would wrestle at four more WrestleMania events and go on to have a record of 8-4. John Cena has had a similar record at the big show (not Paul Wight). Cena currently holds a WrestleMania record of 6 wins and 2 losses. In numerous cases Cena is involved in the last match of the night, usually bringing the show to a uninspiring end, due to his lack of ability, same as Hogan.

It is plain to see that both John Cena and Hulk Hogan have led similar paths to greatness in the WWF. Vince McMahon rarely reuses a story for wrestlers, but in this case he saw his formula work to perfection with Hulk Hogan so he used it again with John Cena. It just goes to show that in the wrestling business, specifically the WWF, you don’t always have to be the best wrestler you just have to have marketability.